How Product Hunt really works

I think Product Hunt merely reflects the way things work in SV. SV is not a "meritocracy". Really shitty ideas get funded and acqui-hired all the time based on insider connections. You think Marissa bought Polyvore for $230 million because it was a rocket ship?

yes - Polyvore had massive fanbase north of 25m monthly users

And how much revenue were those users generating? Of what strategic importance was it to Yahoo? How are they getting a return on $230 million?

Probably way more than something like Mailbox bought by Dropbox, but no one here would say that's a bad idea because most HN users understand mail clients but not a fashion social network